Blood and Alcohol
by dragongurl002
Summary: Sherlock isn't dead and John is an alcoholic. When John discovers Sherlock isn't dead...
1. Chapter 1

**So my friends. I'm doing a Sherlock fanfic (as you can see) also I'm co-writing this! My co-author is sadlittleclown and she is an amazing editor and author! She did the part from when john says "Hello" and edited it all so give her a hand folks!**

**Check out her tumblr she's sadlittleclown!**

Wind snapped Sherlock's scarf behind him as he walked, hair blowing back and the back of his neck bristling. Despite the shouts and gunshots behind him, Sherlock smiled to himself, knowing that his pursuers weren't close enough to actually kill him, but were sure to keep things interesting. He slowed down just a tad allowing himself a quick backwards glance. He nodded curtly; his prediction had (obviously) been accurate. The lights on the street flashed across his face in a series of blinking highlights. As he thundered down the brick sidewalk, he could see the people in the windows of their houses, smiling and laughing and having affairs with each others' wives and being secretly crossdressers. He smirked, a sort of sardonic grimace, sighed, and kept running.

Somewhere in the distance, too far away for Sherlock to deem important, a bell tolled twelve midnight. Signs, traffic lights and angry cops waving jaywalking tickets blurred in the corner of his eye as he continued to make his way towards his place of residence, reviewing the path home in his mind.

However, his calculations as to exactly how many takes it would take him to get to the end of the block, and if he could feasibly run across the street without getting hit by a car, were interrupted when a gloved hand wrapped itself around Sherlock's mouth, wool leaving itchy threads on his tongue as it was replaced with a chloroform rag. He could see the sides of an alley closing in on him as he was dragged out of sight.

"Hello?" John jammed the phone to his ear, head rolling back as he spoke in a voice so scratchy that the sound emitted could barely be described as communication. He had just finished his fifth portion of vodka, the sixth having had been confiscated by a worried Mrs. Hudson before it could slide down his throat and black out another section of his grieving brain. At that point, he was barely surviving from one glass to the next, Mrs. Hudson trying in vain to control his intake. It was she who wrapped a blanket around him when he passed out in the armchair, force fed him breakfast when his hangover was so bad that he couldn't even open his eyes. And it was she that had stolen the phone from his limp hand and was now having a harried conversation with whoever was on the other end.

"We'll be right there," she promised grimly, and John groaned. He hadn't left the flat to go anywhere besides the liquor store two doors down in the eight months since the Fall, and he wasn't planning on breaking his habit, especially not after only five vodkas. Also, he hadn't shaved since Sherlock, hadn't really even properly bathed come to think of it, and there was no way he was leaving the flat without a drink.

Unfortunately for John, Mrs. Hudson had summoned Anthea. And unfortunately for John, Mycroft's assistant had no problems with tossing every single bottle in the apartment out of the window and dragging him out of the flat by his ankles. It was a startlingly Sherlock thing to do, as much so as assuming that he'd bought milk and drinking from the empty carton or shooting at the wall and expecting the holes to go away.

Somewhere around the third step, John's head hit the banister. Somewhere around the fourth step, John blacked out.

When he woke up about fifteen minutes later, there was a man approximately two inches from his head. John jerked back in surprise, and a warm slash of pain burrowed its way past the layers of alcohol smog. His hand found its way to his cheek, and it came away covered in blood and shaving cream.

"What?" John's voice sounded alien to even his own ears, a sort of raspy bedraggled groan. "What the hell?"

"Excuse me sir," the man began moving closer to John again, waving what appeared to be a razor and attempting to placate him in French. "Mycroft wished you to be shaved."

John closed his eyes, partially for dramatic effect and partially because even the tasteful seashell lamp on the table next to him was too bright for his vodka-saturated eyeballs. "Mycroft. Should've known." He paused to wipe his hand on the towel ever so conveniently located next to him. "If I cooperate, can I have a drink?"

Asking, John felt like a crazed toddler asking for a fifth bowl of ice cream. He knew, somewhere in the back of his fuzzy, self-censored brain, that he was a grown man having to be shaved by his former flat mate's brother. He was a grown man who had drank himself into a half-life of telly and alcohol. All semblances of his job had been shed months previously, and the beginnings of a solid beer gut were evident in his slouched form.

"No." A rich voice said from behind him, Mycroft stalking around the chair carrying both a cane and an umbrella. "We have a job for you."

"Ask Lestrade." John had given up on trying to fend off the man with the razor, and was trying not to move his face as he talked for fear of being cut again.

"It's about Sherlock."


	2. Chapter 2

Mrs. Hudson was lost. Mycroft's house was huge, and she had simply been told to look around, and that someone would come for her when John was fit to be seen. Thinking of John, she sighed. Poor thing. He had been gone for months after Sherlock, showing up a few weeks before the present, confused, hungover, and depressed, and addicted. His state had not changed as he grew into the couch, leaving only to stumble to the liquor store. She had asked him if he wanted for her to remove Sherlock's things from the flat but he refused, seemingly preferring to wallow in self-pity and alcohol.

Wandering for what seemed like forever, she eventually settled in a wooden chair stationed rather oddly in a hallway, all by itself. Her hip was acting up again, and in the dim, sputtering light of lamplit hallways (Mycroft has always been rather old-fashioned), she didn't trust herself to find her way back to the room where she had been told to wait. So there she sat.

Every thirty seconds or so, she leaned over and tried to glance in the doorway directly to her left. The door was slightly ajar, just enough that she could see it was an actual room instead of a linen closet or something. After several of said furtive peeks, she gave up on inconspicuousness and stood up, nudging open the door and taking a cautious step inside. The walls were lines with newspaper, the dim table lamp in the corner casting only just enough light for her to read the titles. _Two Dead in Fire. Children Survived_ ,_Young Boy solves Murder, Baffles Police _and, most recently, _Fraudulent Detective Ends Own Life._

"Mrs. Hudson!" A voice echoed down the previously empty hallway, and Mrs. Hudson immediately recognized that with the level of arrogance each syllable possessed, it was Mycroft. "If you've gone in any of the rooms, I'll—"

"You'll what?" Mrs. Hudson ducked out of the newspaper-lined room. "Beat me to death with an umbrella?" She closed the door gently behind her. "And not that I'm your housekeeper, dearie, but I took the liberty of doing a bit of dusting. Just this once, you understand?"

Mycroft sighed. "Fine, Mrs. Hudson." He paused outside of a closed door, muffled complaints emerging from within. "John is…" he paused, considering the proper adjective, "presentable, if a bit disgruntled."

John had been properly dressed, beer-splattered sweatpants and a hole-ridden army tee swapped for khakis and a grey jumper. "Mycroft," he growled in a greeting. "If this bullshit you claim is about Sherlock is about the will again, I'll…" his head lolled back, and Mrs. Hudson noticed the empty glass on the side table. John stood up suddenly, stature wavering even with his arms thrust out for balance. "I'll burn you, Holmes!" he yelled. "I'll burn your fucking house down!"

"If you would follow me" came Mycroft's calm, steely response. Without waiting for consent, he turned and left the room, the quiet shuffle of dress shoes on expensive oriental carpeting fading as he walked. Groaning, Mrs. Hudson grabbed a confused (and very, very drunk looking) John and headed after him, not wanting to get lost in the labyrinthine hallways of Mycroft's exorbitantly oversized house.

Fifteen minutes and three collapses on John's part later, they had reached a door, one of many identical wooden antiquities lining the hallway (which, funnily enough, looked exactly the same as the last four they had walked down.). "Lestrade?" he called, not bothering to knock at the door. They waited, Mycroft tapping his foot impatiently while Mrs. Hudson fidgeted and John leaned weakly against the wall. Being at Mycroft's was really too much for him, wandering the halls as he and Sherlock once had. The memory made him wince, and he longed for the welcoming burn of liquor in his throat, raw from wheezing after months spent out in the cold.

When the door opened a few moments later, a grim Lestrade gripping the doorknob in such a way that one would have thought it was the arm of his dead offspring, Mrs. Hudson took a deep breath, and the three surged through the door; Mycroft hurriedly, John reluctantly, and Mrs. Hudson worriedly, what would have been the clacking of her stylish but sensible shoes muted by the rug.

The room was poorly lit; for all of his wealth, Mycroft didn't have enough windows in his house. Squinting, Mrs. Hudson could make out a table in the gloom, a softly rising and falling mass splayed over its top. Taking a few hesitant steps forwards and dragging John behind her, she leaned in for a closer look.

Every inch forwards she moved, the darker the ominous cloud that seemed to be hovering over the figure got. As she grew closer, Mycroft backed away as if cautious of her reaction to the figure. It took her several minutes to recognize the cheekbones, the mop of black curls, the ever –present sneer etched on the lips. And she was maybe helped along my John's childish whine of "Mycroft, what does this have to do with Sherlock?"

She screamed, eyes closing, and rough hands that were probably Lestrade's led her through the door into the plush hallway. Behind her, the door slammed shut as "Fucking hell, Sherlock!" faded through the wood


	3. Chapter 3

As soon as Mrs. Hudson had left the room, John's inebriated mind processed the scene before him, and, like his hero, best friend, and lover before him, made a deduction. "Fucking hell, Sherlock!" he screeched, stumbling backwards. Mycroft, always prepared (though he'd been a terrible Boy Scout), pushed a chair underneath him. After pausing for a moment to collect himself (well, as much as is possible when one is a tired drunk under extreme conditions) before continuing.

Well, trying to continue. Instead of actually speaking, he spluttered, lips moving and nothing but gobs of spit coming out of his mouth, each fleck on the carpeting inducing another wince from Mycroft. "But… but…" he finally managed to say.

Sherlock rolled slowly from his position on the table, each movement slow and aged-looking. "Surprised? He asked calmly, voice as deep and steady as ever. "Really John, did you think I would kill myself? After all we did together?"

John staggered to his feet, arms swinging wildly as he swayed on the spot. Mycroft made a note to fire whoever had been stupid enough to give John another drink as the formerly dignified man swayed on the spot, pointing his finger at Sherlock furiously.

"Eight months!" he yelled, voice almost lost, absorbed to by the maroon wall hangings. "Eight fucking months!" John took an unsteady step forwards. "I had no idea, you fucking bastard! What kind of asshole does that to someone? Eight months I waited after your bullshit suicide, sitting in the same fucking apartment doing the same fucking things and it just wasn't the same."

By the end of his speech, his words had slowed to a mournful whimper as he collapsed into a pitiful slump on the carpet. His head raised slowly, each muscle motion laborious, and he spat, "I hate you."

Balanced on his side by his elbow, feeling naked without his thick wool coat, Sherlock swallowed. Usually, that would have been an unforgiveable crack in his stony façade, but what the hell. John was drunk, he wouldn't care.

"That's normal," Sherlock said smoothly, the waver in his voice barely noticeable even by Mycroft. "You have every right to be angry with me." His head dipped slightly, a subtle (and rare) sign of submission that went over John's head.

John swaggered to his feet. "You bet your ass I do." He stumbled a few steps forward, each venture on one foot another dangerous dip to either the right or left, each contempt-spiked word slurred almost disgustingly into the next. "You come crawling back on your fucking knees," he paused to take a deep, dragging breath, and leaned heavily against an end table, fingers scrabbling for a hold on the marble surface so that he could hold himself up. "And expect things to go back to fucking normal?"

Sherlock had been holding his breath, and he let it out with a sigh that reeked of cigarettes even to John's clouded senses. "John, you couldn't know." Sherlock was almost pleading, as close to pleading as he had ever come, on his metaphorical knees, and John, his John, was staring back at him with glazed distaste. It crushed him. "It was part of the—"

"The plan, Sherlock?" John yelled. "You and your fucking plans. Experiments, more like. Put the rat in the cage and take away the sunlight and see what sort of crazy bullshit he does, right? Why not toss in some rat poison then, yeah?"

By that point, John had sprung himself from the end table, throwing his hands in the air and pacing back and forth like a hero out of Poe. "Is that it?" he asked dully, collapsing into an armchair in a sudden bout of fatigue. "Did you get your results? Did the rat eat the fucking poison?


	4. Chapter 4

"Yes" Sherlock whispered, siting up a little straighter. "He did." John jerked his head back up, a sudden movement that sent his entire body rocking backwards slightly.

"You left me to fester in your apartment, saturated with everything you used to be, and expected me to come out the same?" John flopped exhaustedly into a nearby armchair. "Rats only live so long, Sherlock."

Anger was creeping into Sherlock's tone as well. "I made a decision that I deemed appropriate at the time." When all he received was a highly skeptical eyebrow raise on John's end of the so-called 'conversation', he elaborated slightly. "I assessed the situation and made an executive judgment. I jumped, your life, and the life of those others whom I value, were spared, at least temporarily."

It wasn't your call, Sherlock! Did you ever think, even for one minute, that maybe your decision, your executive judgment, wasn't the right one?"

It might have been the copious quantities of alcohol he had consumed, and it might have been the stress of having to look presentable, but no matter the cause, it was clear that the ugly noises coming from John's heaving figure were wheezes, each great, quivering sigh a sob. He pawed angrily at his face as if scraping the liquid from his eyes, but the tears just kept slipping out. When he finally looked up, vision marred by salty splotches, Sherlock had left.

Sherlock sighed as soon as the door closed softly behind him. "Mycroft, deal with this mess."

"Not likely, my dear brother," Mycroft said, smirking. "You are, after all, the one that died." He patted Mrs. Hudson on the shoulder, a gesture so domestic that it crossed one's mind that he might be stoned. "No, this is your fault, Sherlock, and you have to learn to clean up after yourself."

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Please. Mrs. Hudson?"

Following her cue, she stood up from, the armchair Lestrade had shoved her into, awkwardly shrugging off Mycroft's hand. "I'd better go talk to him," she said worriedly. "He's had a rather rough time of it, what with the alcohol and all."

Mycroft replaced his hand, dragging Mrs. Hudson back into her seat. "Sherlock, if you don't go in there and talk to that man, you'll never see him again." His fingers drummed on the handle of his umbrella, which had conveniently appeared leaning on the chair when Sherlock had arrived. "I'll give him a credit card and a flat near a liquor store, and leave him to die of alcohol poisoning in peace."

Sherlock turned and opened the door. "John?" He poked his head around the door cautiously. "John, I'm sorry."

"Like hell you are." John barked harshly. "Sherlock Holmes, detective extraordinaire, sorry?" he rolled his eyes. "Mycroft put you up to this."

Sherlock entered the room, bare feet making a surprisingly soft sound on the marble parquet floor compared to his brother's impeccably polished dress shoes that never seemed to leave his feet. "It doesn't-"

"Bullshit," John spat, rising to his knees from his slumped position on the rug. Sherlock could see splotches of dark blood, nearly identical to the shade of the carpet, puddling around his knees, and tinting the light that bounced off the shattered crystal that had once been a rather dreadful vase a pinkish crimson. "If he weren't waiting outside, threatening to haul at least one of us off to a remote unknown location, you would be halfway down the block already."

Sherlock attempted to protest, but only a strangled sort of mutter could come out before John continued. "I know you, Sherlock Holmes, better than you think. I've had eight months of emptiness, eight months of despair, to think about you. And I've come to a couple of very simple conclusions. First, you're a bastard. Second, you're a slob. I don't want to find six-month old fingers in the crisper when I'm looking for a beer. And third, you need to fuck off very, very soon, because there is only so long that I'll be able to sit on this rug before I stand up and carve your face to shreds with this hideous piece of crystal.


	5. Chapter 5

PART SOMETHING OR OTHER BY THE GORGEOUS AND FANTABULOUS SADLITTLECLOWN.

The door slammed behind John as he stormed out of the house, the sound swallowed and muffled by the house. "Fuck you, Sherlock. Fuck you," he muttered as he stomped down the drive, feet leaving angry prints in the gravel. He could hear people scurrying out of the house behind him, their ruckus and worry, but he didn't care. They could come after him all they wanted, beg and plead to have their John back, their friendly pet John. But he wouldn't give in.

He continued to tell himself this as he walked down the side of the highway. The miles back to 221b loomed ahead of him, but he was taking it one step at a time, bare feet aching on the pavement as he had kicked off his shiny shoes in anger. Cars zoomed back, various drivers shooting him assorted odd looks. He knew how strange he must look, a barefoot man in a fancy sweater stumbling along the shoulder of the freeway. So he wasn't startled when a car pulled up in front of him. He was more surprised when Sherlock got out.

As soon as the Mycroft's door had slammed behind John, Sherlock turned to his brother and demanded a car. Mycroft had given him a set of keys, and told him to hurry, promising to take a protesting Mrs. Hudson home in a different car.

The entire ride there, Sherlock had urged the car faster, ducking through traffic and ignoring people's angry shouts through open windows in pursuit of his flatmate. He could see John's tan sweater moving slowly along the road against the foliage backdrop, but kept getting cut off by minivans out for revenge. Eventually, he managed to get ahead of the tangle of cars, and pulled up just in front of John.

"Piss off," John spat, and Sherlock could see that he still wasn't entirely sober.

"John, let me just give you a ride—"Sherlock pleaded, realizing that a drunk John on the side of the highway was wont to get himself killed.

"No." John leaned against the guard rail, pretending that the sharp metal wasn't hurting his ass. "I managed eight months without you, and I can do it again."

Sherlock snorted involuntarily. "Managed? Please, John. You call that managing? You were a drunken slug, a lump of wasteful flesh gathering dust while I was gone, waiting every day for your poor, precious Sherlock to—"

Sherlock's description of him, all too vivid in John's mind, had earned Sherlock a vicious slap and a pink stain across the cheek where John's hand had hit. "Go away," he growled. "Leave me alone. I did my waiting, my fair share of groveling and whining. But I'm past that." He stepped back, so that he was inches away from the cars. "Goodbye, Sherlock Holmes."

As soon as he stepped into the street, his body was swept up by the muzzle of an oversized SUV, limp form thrown forward into the bumper of a station wagon. Horns blared, traffic stuttered to a reluctant halt, and Sherlock darted in between the cars to where John lay.

His body seemed hopelessly mangled, no more than a tangle of twisted limbs and torn knitting. The entire scene was drenched in blood, almost surreal crimson dripping from everything except for Sherlock himself. People were cautiously climbing out of their cars, waving cell phones and screaming. But he ignored them. All he could think about was the fact that John, _his_ John, was lying mangled in the road after attempting suicide, and it was entirely his fault.

He pulled out his phone slowly, dialing 999 and holding it to his ear. When the tinny voice on the other end answered, he could not bring himself to speak. "John…" he stammered, at a loss for words for the first time in his life. "John… hurt…"

"Please state your emergency," the woman instructed.

"John is hurt!" Sherlock blurted. "John got hit by a car and I don't know what to do and you have to help me anything you can do has to be done he's going to die my John is going to die you won't let him die will you?"

"Please state your location."

"I don't bloody know!" Sherlock stood up, holding the phone against his shoulder and gesturing at the gawking crowd. "Well?" he demanded. "Where the fuck are we?"

One brave soul stepped forward and, stammering, gave their location to the woman on the phone, hanging up after and gingerly returning the phone to Sherlock before scurrying back into the crowd.

Sherlock knelt again by John, listening for the sirens of the ambulance. He could see what was left of John's mutilated chest rising and falling, albeit lightly. Wiping the blood off of John's face with his sleeve, Sherlock settled on the pavement to wai


End file.
